To Be or Not To Be: Sudan at Crossroads (Preface)

To be or not to be

I have been an avid reader of the work of M. Jalal Hashim (MJH) for about a decade. This is the first time I read a book of his in English.

For me, as a Sudanese reader and writer, MJH has a firm place in a special, short list of critically important, contemporary Sudanese writers, due to his prolific and valuable record of publications, mostly in Arabic (with some papers and essays in English), addressing various topics from Sudan’s social history, to political theory, to cultural analysis and literary critique.… More

Culture, Religion, and Colonization in Africa

From my personal experience, I interacted with many informed African sisters and brothers – from the motherland and from the diaspora – who really seem to be very conscious and educated of history and social forces, but can’t get beyond the brittle and one-directional view of history when it comes to Africa.

They usually pause the dilemma as such: either Africa had its own history, its own systems of governance, its own culture and spirituality, or we should simply submit to the alienating argument that Africans learned everything through interacting with outside groups.… More

CUSH Manifesto on culture and politics

It is said that Dr. John Garang DeMebior called it, “the most comprehensive treatise of its kind.”

In my previous article I mentioned the CUSH Manifesto briefly, and said that it would be called for to return to it with a bigger summary, within the topic of “the political role of culture”.
“The paper homework of this alliance has been done in what has come to be known as the Congress of United Sudan Homeland (CUSH). In… More

Nafeer: Leadership Demystified

“Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity.”
Frantz Fanon (1961, The Wretched of the Earth)

“Any individual or group that would aspire to lead society must be ready to pay the costs of leadership: to accept the responsibility, to suffer calumny, to surrender security, to risk both reputation and fortune. If this price, or some important part of it, is not being paid, then the chances are that the claim to leadership is fraudulent.

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